Exploring Trail End Museum

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If you’re traveling to Wyoming, Trail End museum is a fun place to visit! Learn a bit about some local history and tour a beautiful Flemish revival style mansion in Sheridan, Wyoming

Even though it’s still fall, winter is moving in quickly here as it always does! Fall sometimes doesn’t last too long in Wyoming, it kind of just moves from summer into winter 😉 Yesterday we had some beautiful fall weather: highs in the 70’s, and today it is cold and blustery with snow falling off and on throughout the day. Things change fast!

Before winter comes in full force, we wanted to do a little bit more exploring. A couple weeks ago we took a little trip up to Sheridan to go to the Koltiska pumpkin patch and wanted to go see the Trail End Museum. We were too late since the museum closed after 4 pm, but we went back the following weekend to see the museum.

We’ve been going to Trail End (also called the Kendrick Mansion) for years, but the last time I had gone to see it was over 20 years ago so I wanted to get in and see everything again.

Trail End was built between 1908 and 1913 for John B. Kendrick, a Montana and Wyoming rancher, former Wyoming governor, and U.S. Senator. It was built in the Flemish Revival style (really beautiful I think!) with tons of handcrafted details throughout the home.

I love visiting places like this since I see so few modern buildings with this much design detail. The building is a work of art!

This is the front entrance of the mansion, I should have stepped back a bit further to get a whole photo of the front, it’s beautiful!

I don’t share a ton of photos here since I don’t want to give away all the fun things this place has to offer – stop in for a visit to see everything in the house!

Looking away from the house on the south side.

The west side of the house. Back in 1968, this home was going to be demolished, but the local historical society bought it, restored it, and made it a museum. Ownership of it moved to the State of Wyoming in 1982.

The carriage house of Trail End is now used by a local theater company for plays and things. The Kendricks lived in the carriage house while the main house was being built for them.

The main stairs leading out of the main hall and entry area.

On the second floor, the Kendrick’s collected photos of their friends, acquaintances, and visitors.

Manville Kendrick’s room (John and Eula’s son), Manville later served in World War 1. To commemorate the entry of the US into World War 1 in April 1917, the museum had WW1 information displayed throughout the house and info about Wake Up America Day.

The third floor had a big ballroom for parties! It’s a big, open space with lots of seating for gatherings and a mini balcony for musicians.

Trail End was built with a lot of modern amenities for the time, like a telephone, an elevator, indoor plumbing, and a central vacuum system. A lot of the windows had lovely stained glass designs.

Part of the kitchen – high ceilings and lots of windows make this space so light and airy. One of my favorite places in this house 🙂

Trail End was named by John B. Kendrick because he had planned to retire here and make this his last home. When it was built, he planned for this to be his Trail End. He later became a U.S. Senator and ended up spending less time here (mostly summers), but they continued to call the home Trail End.

The south side of Trail End

A closer look at the west side of Trail End. This is a fun place to visit and look around, definitely worth a trip! If you’re in this part of Wyoming or the Gillette area, it’s also worth a little drive to the Black Hills for some more mansion tours in Deadwood and Spearfish (at the the D.C. Booth fish hatchery).